Going to the wars the experience of the British civil wars, 1638-1651 - Carlton, Charles (Routledge, 1992)
Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002
Includes bibliographical references (pages 351-409) and index
Foreword / John Keegan -- 1. The Actualities of War -- 2. The Drum's Discordant Sound -- 3. A Sight -- The Saddest That Eyes Can See -- 4. Naming of Parts -- 5. A Soldier's Life Is Terrible Hard -- 6. The Epitome of War -- 7. The Miserable Effects of War -- 8. Tradesmen of Killing ... Managers of Violence -- 9. To Slay and to Be Slain -- 10. When the Hurlyburly's Done -- 11. More to Spoil Than to Serve -- 12. I Don't Want to Go to War -- 13. Then We Started All Over Again -- 14. Does It Matter?
During the 1640s, tens of thousands of young British men set off for the Civil Wars full of that innocent enthusiasm with which so many before and since have welcomed the prospect of battle. Few had much idea of the reality of war. Brought up in a relatively peaceful society, they were totally unprepared for the military discipline, the physical exhaustion, the divided loyalties, the emotional strain, the loneliness, and, above all, the violence of combat. Going to the Wars studies the British Civil Wars as a military experience. It is not a traditional campaign history, a political history of the war, or an analysis of weapons, organization, supply or tactics. Rather it explains how men prepared for combat, how they campaigned, fought battles and endured sieges. Others also endured the horrors of war, and the book pays special attention to those often excluded from a military panorama: women, children and prisoners of war
Combining extensive research in primary sources with the work of the new military historians such as John Keegan and Richard Holmes, Charles Carlton provides a fresh look at the event once described by G.M. Trevelyan as the most important happening in our history